Cave In
by Obsidian Skin
Summary: The GAng explores the Western Air Temple and finds that it isn't as stable as it used to be.


Zuko breathed in a deep breath and relished in the feeling of the noonday sun warming his skin as he lay stretched out on the grass. It wasn't often that he had the chance to simply relax and take a breather anymore so it felt nice to have a moment of peace.

"Hey Zuko!"

Well so much for that.

Zuko kept his eyes shut as he listened to frenetic sounds of Sokka and someone else running across the grass. Suddenly, Zuko couldn't feel the sun on his face anymore. Cracking open an eye, he found that Sokka and Aang were both standing over him with confused expressions on their faces.

"Hey Zuko?" Aang asked. "Whatcha doing?"

Zuko sighed and closed his eyes. "I _was_ enjoying the sun until you two hooligans came and blocked it."

And suddenly, the sun was back. Cracking open his eye again, he saw that the two boys had moved to stand behind Zuko's head so that the sun was free to fall on his form again.

"Did you need something?" He asked as he let his eye slide shut.

"Oh yeah!" Aang said excitedly, as if he'd forgotten the reason he had sought out the fire bender. "Some of us are going to explore the rest of the temple! I mean, I've seen it before but not for a hundred years. Teo says that there's only one hallway that he, Haru, and The Duke haven't been down yet! We're going to go see what's down there!"

Zuko listened to the Avatar's enthusiastic ramble with patience. "That's great," he commented once Aang had finished. "Have fun."

Zuko couldn't see him but he was pretty sure Aang's face had adopted a disappointed look. "You're not coming?"

Zuko shook his head. "I wasn't invited," he pointed out. Truth be told, he didn't care that he wasn't invited. He was content to lay in the sun for at least another hour.

"Well, we're inviting you now," Sokka inputted. "Are you coming or not?"

Zuko didn't say anything for a minute. Then he opened his eyes and tilted his head back to look at the two figures standing above him. He made the mistake of looking at Aang's face. The kid had that hopeful gleam in his eyes that he always had whenever he tried to get Zuko involved with the GAang.

Sighing, Zuko pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Fine. I'll go exploring with you," he agreed reluctantly. Aang whooped and jumped a good six feet in the air. "Let's go!" He cheered once Zuko was on his feet. They made their way back to the group in under five minutes. Katara looked up from the stream of water she was idly bending as she realized that the boys had returned.

"You're coming with us?" She asked Zuko brightly. Zuko gave her a nod. Katara smiled. "Great! Okay is everyone ready?"

Everyone either nodded or voiced their yeses. Everyone except for Toph. Zuko stepped close to address her. "You're not coming?" He repeated Aang's earlier question. Toph leaned back against a fallen chunk of pillar. "Nope. I've already seen all of this place," she answered as she crossed her arms across her chest. Zuko shrugged. It was a plausible reason not to go. He started to walk away and join the group when a hand suddenly snagged the bottom of his shirt. Looking down, he saw that Toph had stopped him.

"Be careful. Some areas of the temple felt a little shifty," she warned. Zuko grabbed her hand and squeezed. "We'll be careful," he promised, a little touched that the girl had shown concern about their wellbeing. He jogged to catch up with the group that had already headed into temple. He shared Toph's warning with them to make sure they were all aware and didn't do anything stupid.

Teo, Haru, and The Duke led the way to the hallway they were to be exploring. It took them no more than ten minutes to reach it. Zuko hadn't realized how big the temple was. The whole way down to the hallway, Aang was pointing out features of the temple. He chattered about the dining hall and the meditation rooms. He even told them were the bathrooms were.

"This is it!" Haru suddenly piped from the front of the group. Zuko looked down the hallway. There was no light in the hallway; Zuko figured that they had ventured to a part of the temple that was underground. He quickly called a flame out onto his palm and held it high enough to give everyone some light. Following his lead, Aang also held out a ball of fire. Zuko stepped forward to the front of the group and started walking down into the corridor.

"Katara, I know it's dark but you don't need to hold my hand."

"I'm not holding your hand, Sokka."

"Okay, then who is?"

Zuko spun around and commanded his flame to become bigger and brighter. Everyone looked down at Sokka's hand in the light of the flame.

"Weasel snake!" Aang yelped. Sokka let loose a long, unmanly shriek while flailing his arm around, trying to dislodge the creature. Finally, after one particularly vicious fling, the weasel snake flew off of Sokka's hand and skittered away into the darkness.

Zuko rolled his eyes and turned away to head deeper into the hallway. That's when he heard it. An ominous rumbling that seemed to resound through the whole temple. Zuko's eyes widened in shock as he saw dust and rocks begin to fall from the low ceiling.

"It's a cave in," he whispered. "Everyone get out of here!" He yelled. Sokka's shriek must've set off the delicate balance that was keeping the hallway together.

The group ran as fast as they could back towards the entrance to the hallway. A loud boom behind them galvanized them to run even faster. Zuko stayed at the back of the group to make sure no one was falling behind. A sixth sense tingled in the back of Zuko's mind. Looking up, he saw a large piece of the ceiling slowly detaching from its surroundings. Quickly calculating its trajectory, he boosted himself forward a few steps and pushed Haru out of the way just in time. The stone collided with the ground with a heavy crack.

Everyone had almost made it clear of the collapsing hallway … until Katara tripped. Zuko watched as she went down and immediately changed his course to go help her up. That's when his sixth sense made itself known again. He glanced up quickly and, sure enough, there was another piece of ceiling getting ready to drop. But this one was right above them. Inwardly, Zuko knew that he wasn't going to be able to get Katara up and out in time. So he did the next thing that came to mind: shield Katara from the stone.

The last thing Zuko saw was Aang running towards them before he and Katara were buried in rock. It surrounded them. More of it must have dropped than Zuko realized. He heard Katara coughing as the dust settled around them. It took a moment, but Zuko realized that he could no longer hear the rumbling of the walls. It seemed as though the cave in had stopped.

Blinking open eyes he didn't realized he had shut, Zuko looked down at the water bender beneath him. Or rather, he looked in her general direction; it was pitch black and Zuko didn't have hands free to light a fire. The fire bender had dropped into a plank position over Katara once he realized that they wouldn't have made it out in time. His arms were extended straight and his hands pressed against the ground on either side of Katara's head. The balls of his feet were dug into the earth and his back and shoulders were the only things keeping him and Katara from being crushed.

It wasn't until right then that Zuko realized the pressure he was supporting. He felt his arms quiver once before he locked his elbows. He could not let his arms bend or the two benders would die a stony death.

"Katara!" Came an extremely muffled shout. It sounded like the shout had come from Sokka.

"We're here!" Katara called back as loud as she could. "Are you guys okay?"

There was a pause. "We're okay! Aang's out cold though. I think one of the falling rocks hit him. We can't get him to wake up."

Zuko blew out a shaky breath. There went their chance of getting out quickly.

"Sokka, go get Toph!" Katara shouted back. "Zuko, how long can you hold that up?" She asked in a normal voice.

"Maybe ten minutes," he replied in a strained voice.

"Get Toph _fast_! Zuko can't hold this up much longer!"

"Hold what up?" Came the muted reply.

"It doesn't matter. Just go!"

There was no reply so Zuko hoped that Sokka had taken off running like his life depended on it.

"Are you okay?" Katara asked concernedly. Zuko grit his teeth. "Yep, yes. I am fine," he forced out. Katara bit her lip. If her guessed were correct, Zuko's back was going to be pretty messed up with the way he had shielded her from the falling ceiling. And she couldn't even begin to imagine the immense weight bearing down on his shoulders and wrists. She needed to distract him or he was going to give out a lot sooner than ten minutes.

"Can I ask you something?" She started out conversationally. Zuko aimed his gaze to where he suspected her face was. "Sure. Fire away," he responded, trying to keep his breaths even.

"Were you and Azula ever close? I mean, not to be nosy or anything but –"

"We were close. Once. I was only two when she was born so I don't remember what it was like to have a newborn baby sister. But what I do remember is playing with her when I was at least four. We did everything together; we were partners in crime. If one of us got lost in the palace, people assumed that they would find us together. And they were right."

Zuko was silent for a moment before continuing. "It wasn't until she turned three that we started drifting apart. The day after her third birthday, she sneezed and shot flames out of her nose. She almost burned Father's ear. But he didn't care because his perfect little daughter was a fire bender. They didn't know that I was a fire bender too. I didn't know I was a fire bender. I didn't show signs of being able to fire bended until a year later when I turned six. But by then, it didn't matter to my Father. Azula was already more advanced than I was. She was his favorite. I resented her for that; it was only natural. I was still just a kid."

Zuko sucked in a sharp breath. "But anyways, that's the only time we were close. The rest is public knowledge."

"Zuko, I –"

"Guys, I've got Toph!"

Zuko breathed a sigh of relief. Oh thank Agni.

"Stay completely still!" Toph commanded. "I'm going to move the top layer first."

Zuko screwed his eyes shut. _Top layer?_ He wasn't complaining though as he felt a marginal shift of the weight on his shoulders.

"Shut your eyes!" Toph yelled. Zuko already had his shut so all that was left to do was to hold out for the last remaining moments.

He felt a shower of dust pour down off his forehead. He resisted the urge to cough as he was sure that that would break his concentration.

And suddenly the weight on his shoulders vanished completely. Zuko dropped his head and sighed with relief. Katara flipped over onto her stomach and crawled out from under Zuko. "Thanks, Toph! You're a lifesaver," she said as she went to hug the earth bender. Pulling back from the hug, so looked over at Zuko and found that he was right where she had left him.

"Zuko?" She worried as he raced back to his side. "What's wrong?"

"Um," he started, "I think I'm kind of stuck."

Katara blinked. "Okay, what do we do?"

Two streams of smoke burst from Zuko's nostrils. "How should I know?" His voice was edging toward hysterical. Katara took a deep breath. "Okay, okay," she placated. "Calm down. We'll figure it out. Let's just focus on getting you flipped over. Sokka, I need your help," she said in a calm voice.

Sokka approached and knelt down beside the stiff fire bender. The two siblings worked together in unison to get Zuko turned over. Sokka wrapped his arms around Zuko's chest and lifted upwards slightly before gently pulling his friend in towards his chest. Once Zuko was rotated all the way around, Sokka slowly lowered him down onto the ground so that he was lying on his back.

As soon as he was lying down, Katara grabbed one of his extended arms and gently bent his elbow. Zuko bit his lip as the joint refused to function at first. But with gentle persuading from the water bender, it finally bent to a 90˚ angle. Laying that arm across his chest, Katara went about working with the other one. Once she had both arms bent and relaxed, she looked over at Zuko's face.

"Feel better?" She inquired. Zuko nodded. "Yeah. Just give me a moment."

There was silence for a minute as Zuko focused on relaxing his body. Then he experimentally rotated his wrists and bent and extended his elbows. Satisfied that his mobility had returned, he propped himself up on his elbows before sitting up. Once he was vertical, Katara enveloped him in a hug. "Thank you," she whispered. Zuko hugged her back with one arm, using the other one to keep his balance. "Don't mention it," he returned.

Looking around at their group, he realized that The Duke, Teo, and Haru must've gone back to the main section of the temple.

"Where's Aang?" He questioned curiously.

"Here," came a discombobulated voice. Zuko watched as Aang approached them with a hand held to his head.

"Are you guys okay?" He asked, worry lacing his question. Zuko nodded before asking about Aang's wellbeing. The air bender assured them that he was fine to which Zuko replied, "Hey, Aang?"

Aang looked over at him. "Yeah Zuko?"

The fire bender got to his feet and settled a hand on the Avatar's shoulder. "Remind me never to go exploring with you again."


End file.
